Dissonance
by sitvha
Summary: You love him but he'll never know. You love him and you wish he did.


_note: I've wanted to do second-person for a while and I was feeling really emo and dramatic so I thought I should let that out on these two. Again, I'm a cheesy piece of shit but I'd like to think this is cute and angsty thanks._

* * *

You hold his hand because it's the only thing that makes you feel good. It feels real when you do.

There was a time you never wanted to go near him, and he would have physically pushed you away if you even tried, but years of regret for both of you and mental help for one of you had changed things.

He touches you and you touch him. Hands grazing arms, heads resting on shoulders, fingers poking bodies playfully. That's what you both do now. The only colors that grace your and his skin are the pinks from blushes and the reds from sunburns, not the purples and greens and blacks and blues that were once there.

You both moved far away from Arcadia Bay when he got out of the hospital, there was no reason for either of you to stay in the place that nearly killed you. He followed you because he had nowhere else to go, and he wouldn't allow himself to burden his sister or best friend. He only allowed himself to follow you because you said you had nowhere else to go too. But that was a lie, the only place you had to be was where he was. Nothing has changed.

He smiles more now, but he's perfect to you even on the days that he can't. You're so proud of him, he has worked so hard and he never stops trying even if it doesn't work sometimes, but he's still _trying_. He's stronger than you are. All you could ever give him is a smile, but he gives you hope.

You love the way he looks against the backdrop of clouds more than sunlight. You think clouds are beautiful and calm, and that's what he deserves. Besides, he loves making pictures and stories in the clouds, so you love them too. He sometimes takes you to the park and you both lay on the grass and he makes you tell him what you see. Once, you saw a boy surrounded by expectations and words, unhappy but smiling so no one worries. You told him you saw a tree and he did nothing but inch closer to you. He told you that he saw a baby in his father's arms and you wanted to kiss him for being the brave one, to pull him close and never let him go.

You've lived together ever since you left Arcadia Bay, and it's been as easy as breathing and as hard as dying. You're best friends and you support each other through the rough and good times; you can talk to each other about anything, except for the one thing that you can never say. That's what makes you feel like dying. Especially when he's doing something as simple as sitting on the couch while reading a book, eyes scrunching and mouth smiling slightly at the words, just asking to be held and kissed and loved.

You both love children, you smile whenever you see one and he always tries to make them laugh. You think of him holding a child of his own, knowing he would give more love to them than he would for anything else in this world. You want more than anything to see it happen, no matter how much it would hurt to watch from the sidelines.

Your favorite thing to do together is watch movies because there is an unspoken agreement that you take turns falling asleep on each other's shoulders. You can't decide which scenario you love more because when you fall asleep on his shoulder, he pulls you in closer and his hand rests on your head and you can pretend for a moment that it means something. But when he falls asleep on your shoulder, you can feel him nuzzle into you and you swear you've never seen him more peaceful and you can pretend for a moment that that also means something.

You wish you could say everything you feel.

You would tell him so many things, about him and you and the world, and he would be happy with you. You would talk until he falls asleep, and you would make sure he falls asleep first so you could wrap your arms around him and memorize his barely-there freckles, the darkness of his eyelashes, the shape of his lips, and maybe his nose crinkling while he dreams and his soft breath against your face. You would notice how beautiful and vulnerable he looks in your bed and you would wonder if it has anything to do with you and you would pray every night that it does.

You wish you could do it.

When you hold his hand, you want him to feel, taste, hear, smell, see you.

Because for you, you feel the softness of his hair against your cheek when he falls asleep on you, you feel the warmth of his jacket when he notices you're shaking from the cold, you feel his smile on your shoulder when he gives you a hug and you would tattoo its image on your skin but nothing could ever come close to the real thing.

You taste the air he breathes and that used to be enough for you but that might be the one thing that's changed, you taste his happiness on the good days and his sadness on the bad, you taste the strength he worked so long for and wish you could amount to an ounce of it.

You hear the way he cries and you would give anything to kiss his tears away and worship him but you know that you don't have him, you hear him speak and you listen so he knows you're always going to, you hear his laugh and it makes you physically ache every time because you don't think even an angel could sound like that unless he secretly was one.

You smell him after he gets out of the shower and you wish you could have been there to wash his hair and kiss the back of his neck, you smell his breath when he thinks he's being funny but he doesn't realize how much the mere inches between your mouth and his torture you, you smell his skin whenever he's near and would inhale it like a drug if you could.

You see that he's not perfect but that's why he is to you, you see that he doesn't need you like you need him but you're selfish enough to stick around, you see that he's the most beautiful thing in your life and you'll spend the rest of it reaching for him just so you can have a small piece.

He doesn't though.

He doesn't know.

He never could.

/ / /

He doesn't know the way you want to feel him, with his skin on yours as you make love slowly because there's so much time for it, with your hands on his back and arms and legs and every other inch of him so he knows he's adored, with your fingers running through his wavy brown hair that feels like how you imagine the clouds to feel, with so much love that you don't know how to give and don't deserve to, with both of his hands in yours so you could only be touching each other, with his body cradled against you because he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

The way you want to taste him, with your mouth kissing his face gently like he's breakable, with your tongue catching every bead of sweat as he fucks you hard, with your lips erasing any evidence of his tears because he acts happy all the time but you know that he's not and you would give anything to be the one to make his smiles real.

The way you want to hear him, with laughter that you cause so you could feel like you're worth something on the days that you feel like you're not, with screams that you would also cause because you made him angry and you would hate yourself a little bit but this is part of loving someone and you want it all, with screams that you would hear again later when you make up and he lets you fuck him and you know you would never hear anything better than him moaning your name when he's lost in you, with sobbing that was inevitable if you have people in your life because people die and he always had more than you and you would hold him forever if it meant he would feel safe, with words that told you what he actually sees in the clouds, with just his breath close to yours so you would know he was there.

The way you want to smell him, with your eyes closed because you love closing your eyes when he enters you and not opening them until he lets you and every part of the air around you is so full of _him_ and you love it, with your nose pressed against his neck because his cologne is too much to handle and you have to physically restrain yourself from undressing him before he walks out the door.

The way you want to see him, with a genuine smile that means he's happy to be near you even though you would never believe it, with his arm around your shoulders as you walk to the park, with blankets covering half his face when you wake up in the morning, with gloves and a hat in winter and your scarf that you give him even though you love seeing the pink on his cold neck, with the same love and adoration in his eyes that are so clear in yours whenever you even think about him, with pain and desperation on his face as he tries to help you come back to reality instead of the dark part of your mind and he stays with you through it all, with tears when you propose to him but you would barely be able to see them anyways because you would be crying even more, and then with his arms around you as he kisses every part of your face, both of your tears mixing together, "I love you's" accompanying every new touch and you can't even speak because you can't believe, won't ever believe, that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you.

But he doesn't know.

You can't tell him.

You wish he knew just by holding your hand.


End file.
